by Angela Petch
‘Hübsch,’ Florian said, handing it back. ‘She’s pretty. I have no girl back home. It makes life simpler,’ he said.
‘I need a piss,’ Weber said. ‘Keep watch for me.’
He handed his gun to Florian. The man was stupid and sloppy, Florian thought, glancing round at the stash of ammunition, assessing the stock of rifles, cartridges and light machine guns. Without thinking twice, he picked half a dozen hand grenades from an open box and placed them in the knapsack he’d used to carry his mother’s cakes. These would help oil the next stage of his plan. He hoped it would work. But he would have to act fast. There was bound to be a tally kept of the contents of this store.
Just before dawn, the rain stopped and Florian bid Weber good night.
‘Maybe you should get some sleeping tablets for your problem,’ Weber said as he locked the door to the munitions store. ‘You must be dead on your feet from lack of sleep.’
Florian was tired; his spirit was tired, but now he had renewed purpose to his life.
Twenty-Two
Lucia plucked up courage and went to talk to her father in the stable, where he was mucking out their one remaining goat. ‘Babbo, can I talk?’
‘You can help and talk at the same time. Shovel this soiled hay out of the door so we can spread it on the vegetable garden.
‘I’m worried about Bellarosa,’ he continued, smacking the goat on her rump. I think she has mastitis and I don’t know how I’m going to get hold of the vet. He’s always helping the Tedeschi with their horses.’
‘Their horses? You mean the horses they have stolen. Have you tried warm compresses with rosemary, comfrey and dandelion?’
‘Of course,’ he said shortly.
Lucia realised she could wait forever for the best moment to talk to her father, but there was never going be a best moment. She blurted out, ‘Babbo, I need to get in touch with Cousin Moreno and the partigiani.’
Her father stood stock-still, his back to her, and she waited for him to whirl around and deliver a blow. Instead, when he turned, his face was full of concern.
‘What are you asking of me?’
‘You heard me.’
‘Why do you think I can help?’
‘I think you know why.’
He put down his pitchfork and walked over, grabbing her arm. ‘Come with me. We can’t talk here. Even the stone walls have ears in this village.’
She followed him at a trot out of the farmyard and up the path to their meadow.
‘Sit down,’ he ordered, pointing to the flat rocks they’d used as makeshift tables for spreading out harvest lunches before the war. ‘Talk!’
‘I told you about the Tedesco I met.’
Her father bristled; she watched his fists clench, but she continued. ‘He wants to help us. He hates the Nazis.’
‘How do you know he is sincere?’
She hung her head and shrugged her shoulders. ‘I just know.’
‘Where is he now?’
‘I need to know first if you will help me.’ Her heart was pounding; she had to get this right. ‘If I tell you, how do I know you will not turn him over to the partigiani? The other day you said we need to stand up to our enemy. Babbo, this could be so important.’
‘Who else knows about this?’
‘Nobody.’
Her father was quiet for a couple of moments. Eventually, he sighed and, turning to his daughter, he chucked her gently under her chin. ‘You have always been my wild, green-eyed girl, haven’t you? I have kept you in the dark on purpose. It was enough to lose your brother to this war and my heart is heavy at the thought of putting your life in danger too.’
She waited, not knowing what to say, half expecting him to use his fists. Instead, he said, ‘You can come with me tomorrow. We leave at dawn, but not a word to anyone else. Not even your mother.’
* * *
She’d been right about the partigiani being somewhere near the ridge. She followed her father up the same path she’d driven the sheep, but as the sun began to rise in the salmon-pink sky, her father pulled a cloth from his pocket.
‘Lucia, from here on, I will blindfold you,’ he said. ‘It’s best for your sake that you don’t know exactly where I’m taking you. Don’t worry, you won’t fall. I’ll hold onto you all the way.’
She stumbled a couple of times, whether on roots or stones she couldn’t tell, but her father righted her each time and after about ten minutes they stopped. He told her to wait. ‘Alessio here will be guarding you until I return, so don’t be tempted to peek.’
She hadn’t heard anybody approach and was surprised when a young man told her curtly not to move, that he was armed and would shoot.
‘She’s my daughter and the cousin of Moreno,’ she heard her father say. ‘Relax! But don’t let her out of your sight. She’s spirited, this one.’
Waiting for her father to return, five minutes became more like fifty. But eventually she felt him back at her side, saying, ‘Come!’
She was still blindfolded and disorientated. Once again, she stumbled and once again her father helped her up as they walked another few metres. ‘You can take it off now,’ he said when they stopped.
She rubbed her eyes and focused on the scene before her. She was in a stone hut. A small window let in a splinter of light and two men sat at a table on upturned barrels. In one corner she noticed a pile of blankets where a younger man was resting. He sat up when they entered. His hair was long and matted, his clothes ragged.
‘Sit here!’ one of the men ordered, vacating his seat. ‘Your father tells us you have information.’
She’d never seen this man before; his accent was strange. A jagged scar pulled his mouth out of shape and his eyes were blue and cold. She wondered if he was even Italian.
‘I have a German friend,’ she said.
The second man spat on the floor. ‘Friend?’ he said with sarcasm.
‘He wants to desert, Stancko,’ Lucia’s father said. ‘He told my daughter he would spy for us.’
‘How do we know he is not a spy for them?’ the man called Stancko with the scarred face and foreign accent asked. ‘Only last January we unmasked a German claiming he was a defector. He was one of their spies. We shot him there and then.’
‘My friend has a map for you,’ Lucia said.
‘Where is he?’ the foreign man asked.
She didn’t answer. Her legs trembled and her heart threatened to burst from her ribcage, but she stayed silent.
‘Well, how can we meet this friend?’ the foreign man, who seemed to be the leader, asked again.
‘I can help with that, Stancko,’ her father answered. ‘I will bring him to you myself.’
‘No, not here. Bring him halfway. You know where we mean, Gori. At the cross. He does not need to know about this place. First, we need to be sure we can trust this friend,’ the leader said with a sneer.
Lucia was beginning to wish she had not become involved in this cloak-and-dagger meeting. The only consolation was the knowledge that her father was obviously involved with these partigiani. They knew his surname and seemed to respect him. He would surely look after her, but would he look after Florian, too?
‘He returned to his headquarters at Badia,’ Lucia said, explaining about the injury he had feigned. ‘I’m not sure when he can get away to leave me a message again. We set up a system. As soon as I can, I will let my father know.’
The young man rose from the blankets in the corner and limped over to peer into Lucia’s face. ‘I know you,’ he said. ‘Lucia, isn’t it? We were at school together. Well, well, well…’
His breath was stale, his teeth yellow, and she racked her brains to remember who he might be.
‘Huh,’ he said. ‘Pretending to forget, are we? Nothing changes… I’m used to being ignored.’
And then she remembered. Basilio – an unusual name. But back then he’d been fat and worn a heavy caliper on his right leg and they’d teased him for his limp. The man before him
was as skinny as a string bean and dragged his right leg, but the whingeing voice was the same. As children they’d tried to include him in their games, but he’d thrown their kindness back in their faces: ‘You’re only being friendly because I’m a cripple,’ he’d say, ‘I don’t need your kindness.’ He was arrogant and unpleasant, teasing the younger children, tripping them up with his calipered leg; it was easier to ignore him than include him. They’d nicknamed him Lo Zoppo, the lame one. Their unkindness had been a form of self defence against his bullying. ‘You’re pretty, aren’t you?’ he continued ‘Quite the ugly duckling transformed.’
Her father took hold of her arm, standing between her and the lame young man. ‘We need to leave, Quinto,’ he said. ‘Excuse us.’ He led Lucia to the door, and as he replaced the blindfold he murmured, ‘He can be a nuisance, that one… it’s a shame he recognised you.’
Outside, she said, ‘But you called him Quinto. That’s not the name I remember.’
‘It’s safer to use different names in this business. Come, we must hurry.’
* * *
She was blindfolded again for the first part of the trek back down the hill. Her father was brusquer as he tied the cloth round her eyes, and then somebody else came so close to Lucia that she could hear breathing. ‘Let me make it more secure,’ the person said. The voice was deep and assured, and unmistakably a woman’s.
Lucia was surprised. She’d imagined partisans to be in groups consisting solely of men, and she wanted to engage this mystery woman in conversation. ‘That’s better,’ the female partisan said after she had adjusted the blindfold, and Lucia felt a hand push something into her pocket. ‘Take her away, Gori.’
Her father gripped her arm as they descended, and when they were at a safe distance he removed the scarf from her eyes and spoke in anger. ‘So, you have been seeing this German again, even though I warned you not to. I should beat you.’
‘If you do, then I will not help your partigiani. Because they are your band, are they not? You can beat me to death, Babbo, but then you could lose a way of standing up to our enemy.’ Something told her that if she didn’t speak up for herself in the next few moments, then her life would never be worth living.
The look on his face was half anger, half admiration as she continued, ‘You too are not the person we think you are. The war is making us all walk different paths, Babbo. I shall keep your secret, if you respect mine.’
He pulled her to him and kissed the top of her head. ‘I am proud of you, my little Lucia. But I fear for you, too. This isn’t a game we are playing.’
She looked up at him. ‘I know that, Babbo. But we need to trust each other. This German is a good man. I know it.’
* * *
That night, in the quiet of her bedroom, she pulled a scrap of paper from the pocket of her skirt hanging over her chair.
I want to talk to you. We need more women to join the fight. I will come to you. Destroy this note.
There was no name. Lucia held the note above the candle, her heart fluttering with a mixture of fear and excitement. She brushed the ashes into a heap with her hands and when they were completely cool, she opened the window and threw them out, watching the pieces drift away on the slight breeze. It took her ages to fall asleep, her mind a whirl from the day’s happenings.
The autumn rains started and fell for ten days solid. In ordinary times, the farmers would have danced for joy, but no new crops had been planted at the start of the season and last year’s wheat rotted further in the storm. On the eleventh day there was a lull. The sun came out and Lucia told her mother she was going to pick early blackberries so they could make jam.
‘It will be sour jam,’ her mother said. ‘I have no sugar.’
‘We can bottle the fruit with apples instead,’ Lucia said, ‘and add honey from our hive.’ She escaped with her basket and called Primo to heel before her mother could stop her.
There was no need to search for a message. Florian happened to be in the cave. ‘I can’t stay long, Lucia,’ he whispered. ‘I am meant to be having stitches removed from my wound. Tell me what happened with your partigiani. When I didn’t hear from you, I began to worry.’
‘The partigiani said they will meet you. When can you get away again?’
‘I’m not sure. How can we communicate?’
Lucia thought for a moment. ‘You can see our house from Badia. Use your binoculars. I’ll hang a sheet from my bedroom window in the morning as a signal for you to come to the cave that night. Mamma will think I am airing my bedding.’
‘That should be possible. I’ve earned a reputation as an insomniac who wanders around the camp at night.’
On her way home, she pulled at blackberries, scratching herself in her haste to gather some for the promised jam, yelping at the pain. She sucked the blood from the back of her hand and almost dropped her basket when a woman behind her said, ‘Wipe it with this.’
Lucia spun round. A girl with a red scarf tied round her head and dressed in baggy trousers, held at the waist with a thick leather belt, offered her a none-too-clean handkerchief.
‘Dio buono, where did you spring from? I thought I was alone,’ Lucia said.
‘You crash about enough to alert the whole of Tuscany,’ the girl said with a grin. ‘You’ve a lot to learn.’ She dabbed at the blood on Lucia’s hand.
She was vaguely familiar to Lucia. And then it clicked. ‘Are you Chiara? Chiara from that awful choir we were forced to join when we were younger?’
‘Chiara dell’Acqua is my old name. But wipe that from your mind. My name now is Rossa.’ She held out her hand and Lucia took it, her fingers almost crushed by Rossa’s firm grip.
‘You were so bad,’ Lucia said. ‘Pretending you were tone-deaf when you had a beautiful voice… and what about the time you let free your pet rat in the middle of the Christmas concert in church? There was pandemonium.’
‘But what a way to get out of future practices.’ Rossa winked at Lucia. ‘Now, to business. Did you destroy my note?’
Lucia’s eyes widened. ‘It was you…’ she said. ‘I didn’t recognise your voice.’
‘I’m a woman of many disguises,’ Rossa said. ‘I can change my voice, my looks, my identity if necessary. And we women are useful to the cause. There are many things we can get away with, and we need more recruits.’ She popped a couple of blackberries into her mouth, pulled a face and then turned to grasp Lucia’s arm, her eyes steely as she spoke. ‘There is something specific I need your help with, Lucia. I need you to listen carefully.’
She picked up the basket of fruit and they set off down the mountain. As they walked, Rossa outlined the first mission that Lucia was to take part in with the resistance. Just before the hamlet, Rossa kissed her goodbye on both cheeks. ‘This is as far as I go. Talk to nobody about what I’ve told you. If this is to work, the fewer people who know beforehand, the better,’ she said. ‘We need it to be a huge surprise.’
‘I promise. And… grazie. I am proud to be involved.’
* * *
Later that week, Lucia was one of the many resistance supporters recruited to carry wood up to the highest peak above Tramarecchia. She had slipped out of the house not long after supper, telling her mother dozing by the fire that she was going to check on the chickens. ‘I saw a fox lurking near the run this morning,’ she lied. ‘I won’t be long.’
Outside, she moved with speed, retrieving the faggots of firewood she and her father had stealthily added to over the last few days. Rossa had warned her that they would not be the only ones making their way up the mountain and, true enough, soon they were joined by a dozen or so men and women, including her own father, who had said he was going out to drink wine at the osteria. Everyone climbed in silence up the mule track. One old man pulled a treggia, a wooden work sledge, piled high with kindling and sticks. There was no conversation exchanged; a nod of the head was sufficient as, one by one, they reached the point on the mountain where two men, hats pulled low over
their brows, took the fuel to add to a stack that was already more than one metre high. Just as quickly as they had come, they all departed, and Lucia and Doriano were back home within the hour, staggering their arrivals as arranged.
At nine o’clock exactly, she peered through the small kitchen window above the stone sink. A hunter’s moon hung high above the Apennines and she called out to her parents, pointing at the flames that blazed in a necklace of fire against the night sky.
‘It’s worked,’ she shouted, startling her mother, who had nodded off. Her father followed her as she rushed outside to join other villagers gazing up at the peaks.
‘Unusual forest fires,’ someone murmured, ‘to be at such regular intervals. Never seen anything like it.’
Lucia and her father exchanged glances and smiled. It would not do any good to reveal that they had been involved, when fascists lived cheek by jowl with communists and rebel sympathisers. On the following morning, when leaflets were picked up in the whole of the Arezzo region explaining the reason behind these fires, Lucia and her father kept their feelings to themselves, but Lucia’s heart was filled with pride and a deeper sense of commitment as she read the words Rossa and other fellow resistance fighters had printed and scattered during the night.
‘We, the partisans of the Arezzo region, have lit fires to show that resistance against the nazifascisti repubblicchini is strong; to prove to anybody who has any doubts that this mountain area is widely controlled by the partigiani; that we are well-equipped with arms and ammunition supplied by the Allies, who frequently drop supplies, and that we will never surrender. Join us in the fight for freedom.’
In retaliation, leaflets were distributed by the militia, describing partisans as brigands who raped women and stole from ordinary people. Many of the brigands, their propaganda stated, were young people who had no pride in their country and who had joined bands of murdering Slavs, English, Russians and Americans who were using them as slaves.